[1] After spending his internship year, 1966–1967, at the Langley Porter Neuropsychiatric Institute in San Francisco, he returned to New York to complete his studies during the Columbia riots.

Although Fish had begun graduate school with the intention of becoming a psychoanalyst, he did a Rogerian PhD dissertation,[2] followed by a postdoctoral program in behavior therapy.

It was during his postdoctoral year that he developed his interests in hypnosis, placebo, and paradoxical interventions[3] (also known as therapeutic double-binds)—leading ultimately to his involvement with family therapy.

At Stony Brook, Fish met his wife, the African American anthropologist Dolores Newton, who had just returned from her second stint of field work with the Krikati Indians in Brazil.

Within cross-cultural psychology his writings have dealt mainly with comparing and contrasting the race concept in a variety of cultures, the race-IQ debate, and Brazil.

Fish's article Mixed Blood,[12] comparing the American and Brazilian conceptions of race, has been anthologized by various disciplines, including history[13] and anthropology.

[15][16] Since his retirement in 2006, Fish has been involved in writing for a broader audience; and he has published in Psychology Today, The Humanist, The Independent Review, and Newsday.